


without words

by CarnivalsoftheCity



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Unrequited Love, mentions of sex but not explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23508256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarnivalsoftheCity/pseuds/CarnivalsoftheCity
Summary: It's not perfect, but it's all he has.Brief study on Jaskier after the events of "Rare Species."
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 2
Kudos: 74





	without words

_See you around, Geralt._

It doesn’t take long for Jaskier to collect the story from the others. 

“You look troubled,” Véa tells him. Her sword drips blood into the dirt below, still wet from the battle with the Reavers. It’s nearly black in color against the pale rocks and grass “Why do you not go with him?” 

Jaskier takes a long moment, staring at the _drip drip drip_ sliding off the metal blade. “I’m not his pet,” he finally says. His words sound hollow even to him. “He didn’t leash me to his side like a loyal dog.” 

Véa is frowning, and Jaskier doesn’t know why. “Some dogs choose to chain themselves to their masters," she murmurs. Some paces away, Tèa watches with a skeptical look. They should be ready to go soon, Jaskier thinks distantly. Surely Borch Three Jackdaws has business elsewhere, far away from the lives of thieves and witchers. 

“I’m not a pet,” Jaskier repeats. 

The Zerrikanian scoffs to herself, before she wipes her sword on her leather trousers. Jaskier thinks she’s going to say something more, or perhaps Borch will appear from amongst the rocks with a wise word or two or three. Perhaps Geralt will come stomping back to Jaskier, glower in place but there to take his foul words back. 

But Véa soon leaves with Tèa, off to the next adventure with Borch, and Geralt does not reappear. 

Jaskier tells himself not to go find the witcher. 

Instead, he picks up his lute and leaves the land of pale rocks and dragons and witchers behind. 

-

It doesn’t get much better after that. 

Songs that had been filled with grand tales of monsters and magic grow dull and lifeless. He has no more quests to write ballads of glory for, and word soon spreads of the lonely bard and his melancholy songs. No tavern wants to hear such music, not when the world was still so bleak. 

On one cold, blustery night some weeks after the dragon hunt, a child approaches Jaskier just outside a tavern. It’s been a foul night - the innkeeper had asked him to play a lively jig, one that could rouse the townsfolk. Jaskier could play the tune and sing the words and smile his best, but for the life of him, he cannot find the joy within him as he used to. It’s as if a cloud hangs over him, seeping into his bones and coloring his cheeks grey.

The innkeeper gives him three silver, when he had been promised five. 

“This isn’t all I’m owed,” Jaskier had said.

“You’re paid to make people feel happy, not pity. You’re lucky I’m giving you that.” 

And so Jaskier had left and found refuge outside, fuming to himself as he plucked an odd tune on his lute. 

The child is still looking at him with huge, brown eyes. A shade or two lighter, and in the right light, they might even be yellow. Jaskier almost swears, and has to bite his lip to keep from doing so.

“Where’s the witcher gone? The White Wolf who slayed the Devil of Posada?” She’s eager for a story, as all children are. 

Jaskier paints a smile on his face, one that fits his features handsomely, but doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “He’s off on another adventure, I’m sure. Slaying monsters and protecting noble lords from evil.”

“Why aren’t you with him?” 

It takes Jaskier a moment to come up with a response, and he reaches forward to pull the girl’s little woolen cap tighter over her ears. Winter is making an early appearance, it would seem.

“Well, I’m on holiday, you see,” he tells her conspiratorially, as if that will dull the pain in his chest. “Too much adventuring isn’t good for my skin, and we all need a little downtime now and again.” He’s maybe laying it on too thick, but the child seems convinced.

“Don’t take too long of a holiday,” she sniffs. “My brother and I have a bet going, you see, on where the princess that the witcher rescues will be from. I think she’ll be from the north.” 

At that, Jaskier does smile, one that truly does reach his eyes. The idea of Geralt of Rivia atop a white horse with a silk clad princess was a very funny one indeed. “Who’s to say there will even be a princess? Perhaps the witcher doesn’t like princesses at all, and prefers to save little children from hags and wolves.”

“Don’t be silly. All knights have to save a princess, that’s the rule.” 

And on that note, the little girl turns and skips away. Her father is waiting some yards away, and casts Jaskier a look as he guides his daughter back into the warmth of their little home. Perhaps he didn’t like Jaskier’s song. Seems to be a running theme. 

Jaskier has a bed waiting inside the tavern. That, at least, the innkeeper decided to keep, even if the room is small and the mattress lumpy and it all smells faintly of cow. It’s better than nothing. 

Clouds are gathering at the edges of the dark sky, and Jaskier thinks it might rain in the morning. No good to travel in the rain, especially when one doesn’t know where they’re going in the first place. 

“What am I doing?” Jaskier wonders outloud. “This cannot truly be the end of me.” Surely, he has seen worse defeats than the one Geralt of Rivia has offered him. But scorns of past lovers have not done such a number of him as this. 

He and Geralt weren’t lovers. 

Were they? No kiss has passed between their lips, or even any notes of affection. Jaskier has spent more nights than he cared to admit lost in the thoughts of Geralt’s low voice and of the witcher’s rough, calloused hands, but that’s a secret he shan’t tell to anyone. 

And yet, his thoughts are consumed again with the Witcher, and the aching hole that has now taken up residence within the depths of Jaskier’s chest. They had been apart for months at a time, yet there was always the unspoken understanding that they would, one day, run into each other again. Almost as if destiny had been drawing them together.  
But whatever blessing had been put upon them has broken, and now Jaskier doesn’t know what he’ll do. He’s not the princess in this story, just a destitute bard who can’t even manage to liven up a backwater tavern in Caingorn. 

That’s as far as Jaskier is comfortable letting his thoughts run for the evening, lest he feels like digging the bottle of dwarven rye out from his pack, and that’s not a habit he wants to get into. 

And so he falls into a fitful sleep, dreams full of the smell of worn leather and of the glint of golden eyes. 

-

Jaskier finds no comfort in the beds of others. 

“Do I bore you?” 

She’s pretty, with red hair and a charming dimple on the left side of her face. Adelina is her name, he thinks. Perhaps it’s Alina. He can’t remember right now, not with her breasts pressed against his side and her small hand wrapped firmly around his cock and his thoughts clearly not in the closet-like bedroom the two of them are sharing. 

“No, no - “ Jaskier tries to insist. “No, it’s just - “ He grimaces as her stroking stops. 

“You’ve never had this difficulty before,” she pouts. God, what did he see in her again? 

“Yeah, well, sometimes it’s not that simple.” Jaskier slips out from the circle of her arms, bare feet hitting the cold wooden floor a moment later. His clothes are strewn about the room and he hurriedly pulls them back on. He feels hot and feverish, and not in the way one hopes to be when in the company of beautiful women.

“Will you be back?” Adelina or Alina asks.

“I’m not sure. Do you want me to come back?” 

“Not if you’re going to be so rude.” 

Jaskier can let her have that one. 

“Look - “ He really doesn’t want to make the mistake of calling her the wrong name - that would really be a cruel way to treat a lady. “Look, darling, I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s - “ 

“Yeah, yeah. I understand.” She flops back onto her little cramped bed and examines her nails with a critical eye. “I hope you figure out whoever she is that’s bugging you. Or whoever he is.” She casts him a smug look. “If not, you know where to find me.” 

“Right. Thank you...Alina.” 

Jaskier doesn’t stick around long enough to find out if that’s really her name or not. He slips down the rickety stairs of the boarding house, past the hunched over old housekeeper who glowers at him as he makes for the door. Jaskier at least has the decency to mouth an apology to her in the hopes that she won’t wave him off with a broom should he indeed decide to come back. 

He’s in another nameless town, one of many that Jaskier has passed through on his mindless wandering. This one is perched not far from Sodden, where they are still reeling from the great battle between the Brotherhood of Sorcerers and the Nilfgaardian Army. It’s been some months, but the region still bears heavy scars. Soldiers loom in the taverns, some missing eyes or limbs, and they say a great monument is to be built to commemorate who had fallen. 

Worse of all is the stretch of burnt landscape, where they say a sorceress clad in black and silver breathed fire like a dragon and set the Nilfgaardians aflame. 

Jaskier isn’t sure that Yennefer can breath fire, but he also wouldn’t put it past her. She always had a knack for doing the impossible. Like wooing Witcher pricks. 

He kicks a rock with the toe of his boot, and it goes scattering off into an alleyway. He feels like a child. Perhaps he is one, though that’s not a very comforting thought in the slightest. God, what a mess he’s become. 

With a sigh, Jaskier sinks down on a fallen stump, just at the side of a road, like he’s a common bard rather than one of the greatest songwriters the Continent has ever seen. He’s played for kings, god damn it. Now he’s here, in the middle of nowhere, moping because he can’t even get himself laid properly. 

Deft, practiced fingers pluck at his lute. It’s a tune he’s been working on, on and off, when he’s not embarrassing himself in taverns. Jaskier hums to himself, not really caring for once if anyone stops to listen. 

It’s not like Jaskier’s usual works, which are lively and joyful and typically end with drinks all around. It’s quiet and sweet and perhaps a touch bit sad. The sort of song one might find in a play, not in a tavern. 

He sings of the coldness at night and the long weeks of nothing, and he sings of the passing of winter and the beginning of spring, and most of all, he sings of the white wolf who walks even amongst the flowers and the sun. 

Soft words fade into nothing, and Jaskier instinctively pauses for applause. None comes, and his eyes flutter close. It felt good to sing - to really sing - again. Tavern jigs still were giving him trouble, no matter how hard he tried to brush Geralt from his mind. 

Footsteps hesitate before him and Jaskier barely has a moment to open his eyes before a gold coin drops in his lap. 

A soldier, gaunt and grim, is standing before Jaskier. The man had rid himself of his armor, but his dark clothes speak to a Nilfgaardian origin. He’s got a wild, sad sort of look in his eyes, and Jaskier recognizes loneliness when he sees it. 

“Your White Wolf…” The soldier mumbles. “He’s been seen south, just outside of Brugge.” 

Jaskier freezes. His hand is halfway extended to give the coin back, but the soldier has already hobbled away, and disappeared into the crowd.

He’s alone again, clutching the coin and his lute with white knuckled fingers, as if those just might vanish before his eyes. 

-

There is a princess, as it turns out. Jaskier nearly laughs out loud when he sees her. 

She’s not what he was expecting, though the little girl from that faraway village in Caingorn seems to have gotten the northern part right. 

The princess of Cintra is a stick of a thing, rosey cheeks and fair hair that makes her look more like a little cherub than a lion cub. But whatever youthful naivety might have once been in her eyes have been replaced by a hard glint, like an iced over lake on a brisk morning. It makes her resemblance to Geralt rather frightening indeed. 

She stands too close to the witcher, as if he might bolt at any moment, though Jaskier doesn’t think she has much to worry about. Geralt’s jaw is set and his shoulders are rigid, which can only mean that he’s set on a mission. It’s funny, that even with so many months apart, Jaskier can still read him perfectly. 

Geralt hasn’t noticed Jaskier yet - the pair of them are still across the town square, looking around as if they expect soldiers to leap out of the shadows at any moment. Jaskier wonders what arduous journey they’ve had along their way.

Yennefer is with them. She’s unruffled as ever in her black cloak, and glides through the town market with ease. The crowd parts before her - perhaps they know she is the Witch of Sodden Hill, or perhaps they just know when to move out of a lady’s way. 

Jaskier watches as she plucks an apple from a cart, examining it with a frown. And then she looks up and meets Jaskier’s stare. His mouth is suddenly very dry. But she doesn’t strike him dead on the spot, or even look particularly angry. Instead she just looks contemplative. 

Yennefer pays for her apple, then returns to her companions. She and Geralt look companionable enough, but there’s something about the way they stand next to each other that tells Jaskier that they aren’t sleeping together. Before the dragon hunt, Geralt looked at Yennefer as if she had hung the very stars themselves. Now he just looks tired. 

She’s whispering something in his ear, and Geralt’s head turns in such a way that his gaze immediately finds Jaskier. 

In an instant, it’s as if Jaskier has been rooted to the very spot - his limbs feel as if they have been filled with lead and his heart is beating in his chest so fast that he’s afraid for a moment he might faint. 

Geralt starts to pick his way across the square to Jaskier, the princess at his side and Yen floating along behind them. It’s terrifying, but also the most alive Jaskier has felt in months.

The witcher stops a few paces away from the bard. A muscle is jumping in Geralt’s jaw, and for a moment, he seems quite unable to speak. Jaskier is waiting...for what? An apology? 

“This is Cirilla,” Geralt says instead. 

Ah. So this is Paveeta’s child. The surprise child, and Geralt’s promised one. She looks like her mother, but carries her grandmother’s pride. Cirilla meets Jaskier’s gaze with a raised chin, as if daring him to challenge her. Yennefer looks almost proud. 

“An honor,” Jaskier says solemnly, and he bows to Cirilla for good measure. She smiles, and for a moment looks like the young child that she truly is. 

Yennefer is watching Geralt with careful eyes, and suddenly Jaskier is reminded of the very tall, very grim looking witcher standing not five feet from him. That’s surely close enough for Geralt to hit him, if he wanted to. Or Jaskier could punch him instead, but he doesn’t want to do that. Not really.

Geralt takes a few more steps forward, until Jaskier can smell him. He’s filthy and bedraggled, and he reeks of sweat, blood and leather. 

He raises a hand and Jaskier waits for the strike. But then Geralt’s hand settles on his shoulder and squeezes. It lasts less than a second before Geralt pulls his hand back and turns away to tell Cirilla that there’s an inn up the way with hot water for a bath, but it’s enough. 

All the tension that has been haunting Jaskier for months, the dull ache that had crept between his ribs and filled his lungs begins to ebb, and at once he feels more like himself than he has in ages. 

Geralt and Ciri are moving away, and Jaskier takes a hesitant step to follow before he stops himself. But then Yen is gesturing for him to follow them with a lazy flick of her wrist, and so Jaskier does. 

Véa’s words echo in the back of his mind. _Some dogs choose to chain themselves to their masters._

He ignores her, because if he thinks on it any longer, he’ll run all the way to the Far North just to escape it. It may not be perfect, but it’s all he has.


End file.
